yppahpeek

How confident are you of your privacy? When you log in to Facebook, gmail or Twitter, how confident are you that no one else can view your information? More importantly, how do you keep your bank details safe when paying for a novelty, festive hat on ebay? In our modern world, we have come to rely on encryption as a method of keeping our secrets secret. Since we first began transposing our thoughts onto papyrus, wax-tablets or paper, we have tried to invent more complex codes so that our thoughts can remain a secret to be shared with only those with whom we want to share. A simple code is the Caesar shift. Named after Julius Caesar, who popularised its use, the Caesar shift works by substituting every letter with a letter a certain number of positions along the alphabet. For example, an ‘A’ would become ‘B’, a ‘B’ would become ‘C’, a ‘C’ would become ‘D’ and so on. This shift is called the ‘ key ’ and the text it produces is called the ‘ cipher ’. Using the key above, the followi...